Innovation Consulting Services

As the ANA Vice President of Nursing Innovation, I work across the ANA Enterprise (American Nurses Association, American Nurses Credentialing Center, and the American Nurses Foundation) to support the development of nurses and healthcare innovation. This starts with unlocking the exclusivity of the innovation process. My goal is to support nurses to build and lead innovation initiatives across every aspect of the health care ecosystem.

We need to ensure that all nurses are able to participate in the process of innovation – no matter their location or resources. Innovation, design education, and expanded partnerships will create opportunities for nurses to drive new ways to deliver care and care models, which includes new revenue streams, and business models. Building nurse led innovation, and using innovation as a fulcrum to shift values, beliefs, and to improve practice, care delivery, and organizational cultures – was the focus of my scholarly work. I designed the inaugural Planting Seeds of Innovation conference in 2015, which became an annual event. I’ve worked with health care systems and health care executives from across the country.

The ANA Enterprise organizations have created a bedrock for nursing practice across our country. Our profession has a rich history of inventing solutions for patient needs. We need to acknowledge best practices and recognize how our profession's past could inform our future trajectory. Redefining and reimagining the future role of nursing, begins with the work we lead today.

We can translate the anxiety and frustration across our industry, workforce, and profession - into urgent optimism. Nurses have unique abilities, and skill sets, which allow them to think and work across systems. Nursing and nursing innovation can no longer be invisible. The complexity of our world requires nurses to be expansive in their thinking, and with their actions.

As an innovation scientist, I explore a variety of ecosystems and look for potential and existing synergies between seemingly disparate entities in ways that confound, reveal, and inspire. I celebrate nurses who deploy imaginative questioning, adopt divergent thinking strategies, leverage evidence-informed practices, and explore innovative solutions to address existing disparities. For all nurses to thrive in the healthcare ecosystem, I fully embrace liberatory design strategies that create conditions for self-awareness, equity, creative courage, and collective liberation. My intent in this role is to widely disseminate the contributions of nurse innovators, encourage nurses to recognize and embrace their innovative capabilities, generate research to advance nurse-led endeavors, and activate innovative ecosystems.

As an innovation scientist, I explore a variety of ecosystems and look for potential and existing synergies between seemingly disparate entities in ways that confound, reveal, and inspire. I celebrate nurses who deploy imaginative questioning, adopt divergent thinking strategies, leverage evidence-informed practices, and explore innovative solutions to address existing disparities. For all nurses to thrive in the healthcare ecosystem, I fully embrace liberatory design strategies that create conditions for self-awareness, equity, creative courage, and collective liberation. My intent in this role is to widely disseminate the contributions of nurse innovators, encourage nurses to recognize and embrace their innovative capabilities, generate research to advance nurse-led endeavors, and activate innovative ecosystems.